Agile Value #4: Change is good!

Think of change as the result of learning new things. When your customer suddenly changes his mind, the natural reaction is to get defensive and avoid it. But this is in fact a good thing. It means that she has learned more about her problem and has found better ways to achieve her business goals.

So change is good, but to be able to keep up with the never ending flow of changes our software must be built to manage it as easily as possible. This means we should write the simplest possible software which solves the needs of today, rather than guessing about the future. It gives us less baggage to carry around and fever things to change once the future becomes todays reality.

The fourth and final value of the core agile statements brings this piece of advice to the table:

We value responding to change over following a plan

This means you should trust in yourself that you don't know everything today, and that you should only focus on what is most valuable at this moment in time. Or maybe humility to have the insight that you cannot predict the future.